Andreas gasps a ragged breath, and our attackers throw something that hits the dining table with a smack. The wooden surface blasts apart in a shower of splinters.
And the last of the control I was holding onto snaps.
The shriek that’s been swelling in my chest claws up my throat and sears from my mouth. It screeches out of me so loud my ears ring with it.
My vision hazes. My body sways where I’m braced against the floor, the power of the scream threatening to consume my entire consciousness as it careens through the room.
I dig my claws deeper into the boards beneath me, holding on, refusing to be as overwhelmed as I was last time when it took me by surprise, when I had some toxic drug dragging me down.
If this is me, then I have to own it. I have to be awake enough to make sure I only hurt the people who’re trying to hurt us, not the men who are my blood.
Whether those men still want any kind of bond with me after this moment or not.
The piercing wail keeps pealing from my lungs and ricocheting through the room, and a sense of the figures around me ripples back into my body like some kind of echolocation. I’ve pinned them in place, six men still standing in the front area beyond the dining table, eight in the living room who’d been approaching the sofa, three in the kitchen behind me.
And Engel. I can feel her too: a slightly different, more familiar quiver that runs through the lancing energy I’m throwing at them.
She’s tucked away at the top of the basement stairs where she must have been watching from, as paralyzed as the others.
“Riva?” I hear one of my men murmur, so distant through the scream that I can’t even tell who it is.
I ignore him, plummeting deeper into the current of the scream as it radiates through every cell inside me. Hunger courses with the vicious energy, prickling all the way down to my gut.
My awareness of my captives sharpens with the heightening of the shriek. I can follow the thumping of their pulses, the trembling of their straining muscles.
All the nooks and crannies where the pieces of their bodies fit together. All the soft and tender spots filled with fragile nerve endings.
My attention homes in on the closest man. His feet.
I snap the balls up toward his shin so fast I turn the arches inside out.
The crack of the bones sets off his guttural cry, and the blaze of pain flows back into my lungs. But it doesn’t hurtme.
No, it’s like drinking the freshest lemonade on the hottest day, a balm to every place inside me that’s been craving relief.
I need more. More.
They have to pay.
I close my eyes, lost in the ringing in my ears, the screech of my own voice, and the bodily reactions reverberating into me. Every sensitive spot on our attackers lights up in the picture painted by my new senses.
Crush his knee caps. Burst his balls. Crack every bone in his spine from the tailbone up—but careful not to sever the cord.
Let him feel every tremor and stab of agony I’m inflicting on him. I can only gulp it down if he tastes it too.
Pop his elbows inside out. Mash every finger from tip to knuckle. Break his ribs and shove the shards down into his kidneys.
The stream of anguish widens into a torrent. It floods me, shockingly exhilarating.
Somewhere way deep down in the back of my mind, there’s a flash of horror, but not enough to distract me.
The current halts as the man blacks out, his mind short-circuiting. Nothing more to gain from him. I wrench his head around to end him completely, my awareness already leaping to the next.
One and then another and another. Faster with each iteration as I gain momentum.
Tendons rent, sinews torn, bones fractured. Organs punctured, joints unhinged.
The glorious flood of agony tingles over every inch of my skin. I’m vaguely conscious of the wound on my shoulder sealing up, the flesh smoothing out like it was never split.